HOME PAGE

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

US Slave Philip Reid Cast The Statue of Freedom

Her name is Freedom, but she owes her existence to a slave.

The Kathy Keily of USA Today reported: For much of the summer, a small team of conservationists perched atop the U.S. Capitol has been working to protect a relic of American history with a little-known back story.

So as the preservation work continues on Freedom Triumphant Over War and Peace, as the allegorical statue is formally known, it's a good time to pay tribute to some of the unsung heroes of the Capitol: the slaves who helped build it. One of them was Philip Reid, without whom the 19½-foot, 15,000-pound bronze piece might never have occupied its place of honor above the nation's capital.

American sculptor Thomas Crawford created the plaster model for the statue at a studio in Rome during the mid-1800s and shipped it to Washington in five pieces. After it arrived, officials decided to assemble the model so passersby could admire it while the Capitol dome was under construction. According to a contemporary account, it was "put together so nicely by an adroit Italian employed about the Capitol that no crevices were perceptible."

That turned out to be a problem when the time came to transport the model to a nearby foundry where the bronze version was to be cast. It was too big to move in one piece, and the Italian workman who knew where the joints were refused to divulge the secret, holding out for a big raise.

Foundry owner Clark Mills assigned the task of solving the puzzle to Reid, one of his most skilled workmen — and one of Mills' slaves. Attaching a rope to Freedom's head, Reid used a block and tackle to tug gently upward until hairline cracks in the plaster began to reveal the statue's separate pieces.

Pay stubs unearthed later revealed that Reid also worked on the casting of the bronze. The government paid slaves' owners for most days they worked, but the slaves themselves were compensated if they pulled a Sunday shift. Reid earned $41.25 for working 33 Sundays in 1861 at $1.25 a day.

By the time Freedom was raised atop the Capitol dome in December 1862, Reid was a free man. The District of Columbia's 3,100 slaves were freed that year by an act of Congress. According to a document on file with the National Archives, Mills sought $1,500 in compensation when Reid was freed. Altogether, the federal government paid almost $1 million to D.C. slave owners.

Today, the plaster model of Freedom that Reid helped disassemble is on display in the basement of the Russell Senate Office Building's rotunda. Inside the Capitol, there are dozens of displays about the artisans who helped create it. But the work of Reid and other slaves remains an all-but-untold story. The U.S. Capitol Historical Society mentions it in a traveling exhibit about the history of African-Americans in the Capitol, but no permanent memorial exists in the building itself.

After Ed Hotaling, a journalist who was working for a Washington TV station, uncovered documents in 2000 attesting to the work of the slaves, Congress promised to come up with a way to commemorate the contributions of slave laborers at the Capitol. A task force has yet to come up with a plan. Brenda Jones, a spokeswoman for Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who is a member of the task force, says the group is still "trying to determine what would be the best way to honor slave laborers."

Hotaling worries that the effort could lose momentum. "I think politicians are embarrassed and don't know how to deal with it," he says. Instead, he argues, America's leaders should be doing everything they can "to encourage further discussion and study of the role slaves played in creating America's temple of liberty. They made an enormous contribution to American life."

Philip Reid, a thirty-nine-year-old slave from South Carolina, cast and helped to save the model of the Statue of Freedom that sits atop the Capitol Dome.

16 comments:

A brief look at the history of African Americans and their part in building the United States Capitol. Written for 8th grade to high school age group, but adults will find it great reading. Softcover, 28pp., 2006.

This is the perfect blog for everyone who wants to find out about this topic. You understand a whole lot its almost hard to argue with you (not that I personally will need to…HaHa). You definitely put a new spin on a subject that's been discussed for years. Excellent stuff, just wonderful!

Hello, I think your website might be having browser compatibility issues.When I look at your blog in Chrome, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping.I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other then that, excellent blog!

Hey just wanted to give you a brief heads up and let you know a few of the pictures aren't loading correctly. I'm not sure why but I think its a linking issue.I've tried it in two different internet browsers and both show the same results.

Have you ever thought about adding a little bit more than just your articles? I mean, what you say is fundamental and everything. Nevertheless imagine if you added some great visuals or video clips to give your posts more, "pop"! Your content is excellent but with images and videos,this blog could undeniably be one of the most beneficial in its niche.Amazing blog!

I must thank you for the efforts you've put in writing this site. I am hoping to see the same high-grade content by you in the future as well. In truth, your creative writing abilities has motivated me to get my own website now ;)

When it comes to student loans as we all know the 1st process is to get your business to make sure your dog gets its walk. S army as reserves, and armed service nurses would be dressed in the same old" cookie cutter" template?

Keep your guests entertained before the game and earn mobile prize.3Strategies to reach Hispanic/Latino audiences often miss the mark.We certainly look at the product.

Capoeira

African Martial Arts of Brazil

About the Banjo by Tony Thomas

The banjo is a product of Africa. Africans transported to the Caribbean and Latin America were reported playing banjos in the 17th and 18th centuries, before any banjo was reported in the Americas. Africans in the US were the predominant players of this instrument until the 1840s.

Charleston Slave Tags and Slave Badges

Badge laws existed in several Southern cities, urban centers such as Mobile and New Orleans, Savannah and Norfolk; the practice of hiring out slaves was common in both the rural and urban South. But the only city known to have implemented a rigid and formal regulatory system is Charleston.

MANILLA: MONEY OF THE SLAVE TRADE

Manilla. Manillas were brass bracelet-shaped objects used by Europeans in trade with West Africa, from about the 16th century to the 1930s. They were made in Europe, perhaps based on an African original.Once Bristol entered the African trade, manillas were made locally for export to West Africa.

SLAVE CURRENCY: African Slave Trade Beads

In Africa, trade beads were used in West Africa by Europeans who got them from Venice, Holland, and Bohemia. They used millions of beads to trade with Africans for slaves, services, and goods such as palm oil, gold, and ivory. The trade with Africans was so vital that some of the beads were made specifically for Africans.

Slave Trade Currency: Cowry Shells

Long before our era the cowry shell was known as an instrument of payment and a symbol of wealth and power. This monetary usage continued until the 20th century. If we look a bit closer into these shells it is absolutely not astonishing that varieties as the cypraea moneta or cypraea annulus were beloved means of payments and eventually became in some cases huge competitors of metal currencies.

Bunce Island Slave Factory

Cannons with the Royal Crest

Adanggaman

Africans Making Slaves of Africans

Ota Benga The Man in the Bronx Zoo

Ota Benga (1883-1916) was an African Congolese Pygmy, who was put on display in the monkey house at the Bronx Zoo in New York in1906

Railroads and Slave Labor

North America's four major rail networks — Norfolk Southern, CSX, Union Pacific and Canadian National — all own lines that were built and operated with slave labor.

Sculptor Augusta Savage

"Lift every voice and sing" by Augusta Savage: New York World's Fair.

Afro-Uruguay Spirit of Resistance in Candombe

In the streets of Montevideo, Uruguay, Afro-Uruguayans celebrate an often-ignored part of their history - Candombe and resistance.

Tintin: Sinister Racist Propaganda

Tintin has been an inspiration for generations. But his status as a paragon of wholesome adventure is under threat, thanks to a court bid to ban one of his books, Tintin in the Congo, for its racist portrayal of Africans.

W.E.B. DuBois

"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." -- W.E.B. DuBois

Slave Tortures

Portugal Slave Trade

1501-1866 Portugal transported 5,848,265 people from Africa to the Americas.

French Slave Trade

1501-1866 France transported 1,381,404 Africans to America.

Great Britain Slave Trade

1501-1866 The British transported 3,259,440 Africans to the Americas.

Spain Slave Trade

1501-1866 Spain transported 1,061,524 Africans to the Americas

Denmark Slave Trade

1501-1866 Denmark transported 111,041 people from Africa.

United States Slave Trade

1501-1866 The USA transported 305,326 Africans to the Americas.

Netherlands Slave Trade

"To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?" — Marcus Tullius Cicero